Croissants and bentos

I made croissants for the first time. It involved freezing butter, making dough have lots of layers, and overnight rising. In the first batch, I didn't line up both triangles very well and ended up with crab croissants:

The next batch had triangles that were the wrong shape and ended up looking like shrimp. They tasted good at least!

I made a bento using leftover crepe filling in an omelet.  

Adam made delicious apricot ham

the next day's bento was make-your-own-sandwich (bread not shown)

Today I felt really uninspired for bento-making. We need to go grocery shopping... I made a spinach omelet with some toast and then I had no idea what to do with the extra space, and the cottage cheese wasn't secure and probably got all over everything. Not every bento is beautiful, alas.

February bentos

I got back into bento-ing this week! I think it was a combination of not having as many leftovers and getting cherry tomatoes. Seriously, cherry tomatoes go with everything. I don't always make cute lunches, but I always feel nice when I do. Kind of like dressing up or something. 

Kalamata olives with crackers and cheese and tomatoes, salad, and quinoa veggie leftovers. I had never had kalamata olives before, but they are really vinegary! Great on Greek salad with feta cheese.

More quinoa pilau leftovers. The egg salad and tomatoes went with the swiss cheese (hidden under the unleavened bread) as crackery thing topping.

The whole lunch doesn't fit in one bento! Veggies to steam and apples along with red tea went in this lunch. Also: adorable lunch bag I found at a botique here in Spanish Fork.

Leftover corn porridge (polenta) topped with fried onions and tomatoes. Turkey and cheese to go with the rolls. I also sent some apples and cole slaw too. 

Culinary Adventures

Actual rice balls! Not pictured: lots of lettuce to go with the fruit

Adam and I bought a new Prius two days ago. It's really cool, with lots of gadgets (the polar opposite of our Civic, which doesn't even have cruise control). I love the car and am terrified to drive it, and I'm not sure how I feel about being a 2-car house. I wish that buses went out this far so I didn't feel like it was necessary. But now I can go volunteer at the library without driving into work with Adam and picking him up later (said library would try to squeeze me into their busy volunteer schedule. Oh, the joys of living in Utah). And the Prius will be much better for road trips and Ikea trips.

Made it with dried chickpeas

I've been trying to cook every weird thing I have ever wondered if it was possible to cook. Last week we made okonomiyaki and falafel, and yesterday I made hummus (apparently, this is what garbanzo beans are good for). I'm going to try to make miso soup later this week. I've been trying to keep up on reading Japanese, doing yoga, and making myself a real lunch everyday (sometimes I forget to eat lunch... other things are more exciting?). I bought a steam cleaner for the floor, and while it doesn't really pick up much dirt, it feels so wonderfully clean afterwards. I threw out our old mop which was basically a floor-sponge that was grossing us out anyway.

I have some ideas for an Oishinbo-like comic set in Utah, but I'm not sure if I'm good enough at drawing to pull it off. If I do put something together, I'll post it here and you too will be able to relish the joys of comic food writing. :-)

Goals follow-up: Extensive reading!

I've decided that for my goal in keeping up Japanese, I want to read in Japanese every day. This blog has some information on "extensive reading," and it sounds great: read in your target language and if you have to look up lots of words find something easier (the blog is also a great resource for online Japanese stories and how to buy used books in Japanese).

even their readers have a cute mascot

We've ordered more graded readers to help (we have Level 1, Vol. 1, whose five stories I finished this week. It's a great feeling to read a story without looking up tons of words!). I'm thinking I'll reread the stories to get the vocabulary a bit better. If I keep doing updates on this goal I will probably do it over at my failed Japanese language blog (I got really frustrated when youtube took down my 10-second clip of Fruits Basket. It's educational! It's fair use!). 

Also, we planned out this week's meals! We didn't follow the plan exactly but it helped a lot with the "whadya wanna eat tonight?" "I dunno, whadda you wanna eat tonight?" problem.

2011 summarized and thought about

Things I/We Did in 2011:

-Went to Japan, Bear Lake, Minecon, and California

-Raised Koko from puppy to... older puppy

-Themed parties (I know, dorky, but I think they are fun): Japan, Magic: The Gathering, Scrabble (was that this year? I can't remember), and Harry Potter

-Played about 40 hours of Persona 3 and I think I am only halfway through (but I beat Pokemon! And I have spent many hours playing Glitch. And I bought a lot of games... I need to spend less time reading about games and more time playing them.)

-Dropped out of grad school!

-Wrote about six articles for Deseret Connect

-Got to know my ward better somehow

-Decided to insist on tall jeans! If it's not long enough I don't want it!

-Attempted Christmas baking for the first time. It is a lot of butter and a lot of work.

-My husband's company was acquired by Autodesk. Holy taxes, complicated things.

Bear Lake's library is quaint; their raspberries imported.

little Koko!

Pretty much grown up?

How I think I have changed?:

-Mixed feeling about having children. I'd like to try it, but honestly some parents and children really scare me. Also I have decided not to stress out about being pregnant or not.

-I care more about cooking and housekeeping. These are things I will be doing a lot in the future, and dangit, I might as well get good at some of it, or find a way to get machines to do it for me (thank you, bread maker).

-I'm an elitist about some things. I don't have to tell everyone what I'm thinking about their taste in reading or music, but I am okay with thinking that some things are better than others. 

-I think I'm less abrasive with others. If I think someone's diet is stupid, I don't usually say anything (although... is sugar really that bad for us?). But if someone asks me my opinion on something, I will be gently truthful!

Some library books are gorgeous

Things I'm trying to do this year:
-I would like to post to my video game blog twice a week, or at the very least once. I want to write posts about psychology research on video games, and I want to do an analysis of all the video game post mortems I can find.
-Read more manga! Seriously if I am reading a good manga I feel like I'm on vacation. It is a luxury I want to indulge more! I recommend Oishinbo, an 80s manga about foodies.

this is a matter of life and death!

-My husband made a goal to either walk Koko for 30 minutes or play DDR for 30 minutes. I think it's a good goal! I guess I would like to do either or both of those things every day, and maybe do some more youtube yoga videos.
-I want to at least plan dinner in advance each week. It makes me less stressed out about preparing food. I would also like to make a few really gourmet bentos this year (for Acius, or maybe for a summer picnic or something).
-I want to beat some video games! My favorite part of playing a game seems to be the beginning but beating a game is also very satisfying. But I don't want to keep playing a game I don't like... I just have a hard time starting sometimes, and then afterwards I think "why don't I do this more often instead of checking facebook all the time?"
-I would like to keep up on my Japanese language learning somehow, but I don't have a good plan. Even if I made some sort of schedule I doubt I would keep it;;... but maybe I can try scheduling an hour a day to study.
-I still have some vague dream of making a video game with Acius, so work on that somehow?

Grad School Postmortem

Okay. I dropped out of graduate school. I was really sick of working on my thesis (seriously. I would get stomachaches and things). I was to the point where I was worrying about it all the time and procrastinating all the time and then when I did work on it it felt like I wasn't going anywhere. I thought about it a bit, and I decided that for the things I think would be really awesome to do in my life (be a video game journalist, make a video game, be a freelancer, be a mom), I don't need an MA. I would need an MA to teach composition, and I don't like teaching composition. It was a good experience to finish all the coursework for the degree--learning about feminism and aesthetics has been really helpful to how I criticize books and video games. But in the end I don't really need a master's degree in English.

So I'd like to do a postmortem kind of thing and maybe if you ever write a thesis you can avoid the mistakes I made.

Mistakes I Made:

-I was distracted with taking Japanese my last year in coursework. I liked studying Japanese a lot more than working on my thesis, which maybe says something about what I should have gotten a degree in.

-I sat on drafts. Early on in the drafting I pestered my adviser too much and he chastised me. Ever since, I was worried that I was bothering him. I would finish the things he told me to do and then try to anticipate what the next revision would be, instead of sending him back a draft quickly and waiting for a response. I should have worried less about being a bother and more about getting my tuition money's worth of feedback.

-I chose a professor on my committee who I had never worked with before, and she turned out to be kind of scary and have more sway over my other two professors than I thought she would. I wish I had had a professor on my committee that I felt better friends with--someone that I could have complained to a little but would also have been able to explain the weirdness of thesis-dom. I also would have liked someone on my committee who had read either House of Leaves or Portal. As it was, I felt like I could say anything about the works and no one would care whether or not my analysis rang true.


Frustrations with my Adviser (who is a nice person and a scholar and this isn't meant in a mean way, more as a retrospective, "I wish this had been different" way):

-Sometimes I would meet with him and he wouldn't have looked at my latest draft. Once he told me to make changes I had already made. This combined with my habit of sitting on drafts was frustrating.

-He had a vision for my thesis revision procedure that he didn't share with me from the beginning. Each time he gave me feedback, I was thinking "I'll do this and then it will be done," whilst he was thinking something like "after she reorganizes it, I'll tell her to reintegrate secondary criticism." When I found this out I was upset that our communication hadn't been clearer.


It was bad enough writing papers for one professor, but writing one for three was too much for my politically-anxious mind. I probably could have gone on and graduated, but I feel a lot better now for having made this decision. I feel like I can focus on what I want to do and not what I have to do. I have a plan for dinner every day this week and a cleaning schedule. I want to learn CSS and Javascript. Life is just better now.

Koko: Confused by whistling

I actually worked on my thesis today, and then sent out a draft to my committee! So, much thanks to those of you who commented on my last draft, it was somewhat helpful (as was the feedback from my advisor). I'm not really sure if I will defend this semester, and I'm not really sure if I want to give it another semester if I don't.

Other things: We are going to Minecon next week! Let me know if you have swag requests or anything. Koko got spayed and she has been teething it up really bad, so we've been trying to be extra patient with her while she grows up. Also, whistling confuses her:



Oh, I finally finished watching LOST. I read up on some of the explanations for stuff. I feel kind of meh about the whole series, and I think there's some more potential for magical realism in TV shows.

The Domo-kuns of Japan

I bought this folder in Japan and felt like sharing it. Please enjoy the many Domos of Japan.

Magic: the Gathering Treasure Hunt

Back when my brother and I had our birthday party together I made him a Magic: The Gathering treasure hunt with clues I made to look like Magic cards (using this set editor). I tried to vary up where the "hint" was--from the picture to the flavor text I wanted to make it exciting to read the card (and not too hard). Making them reminded me of the Unglued set and now I am wishing that there were more humorous cards in Magic. Anyway, it was fun, and here are the clues. Feel free to steal them for your own treasure hunt, but making them is so fun that I recommend that.

Our deck

Koko's crate

The dryer

Some Miracle Grow

Bread

Toaster

The anxiety of the undone, and an invitation to help

I feel like when I was in college classes, I could do a ton of different things and still have a social life and time for goofing off. But now that I'm in charge of scheduling my own days, time seems to shrink and I procrastinate things I need to do. Like put up the curtains we bought or clean the kitchen floor.

I'm still struggling with my thesis. I am so sick of it, but I can't forget that it's there. I try to get inspired by reading video game criticism but I feel like I really have nothing more to say about the postmodern journey myth. It's hard to feel very productive if I don't work on my thesis, even if I vacuumed/cleaned the kitchen/prepared to have an awesome party/blogged about GEEX. There's always in the back of my to-do list this huge looming mountain that is my thesis and I feel like it will never go away. Any fun I have playing a game is eventually turned into procrastination of the inevitable.

that sick cycle

Day 1: Okay, fine, I'm sick. Day off! Video games! Try to stay away from people so I don't spread germs!
Day 2: I can do this. Wait, what the heck is going on in LOST? I've lost to this boss in Persona how many times? I am just not with it. That's it, I'm going to run around in Assassin's Creed.
Day 3: Maybe I'm feeling better. I might as well finish reading this book. Okay, I can do video games, yeah.
Today: I'm better right? How about I get dressed and everything, that will convince myself.

But no, I'm still weirdly sick. I feel like the master of a marionette which is my body, which I can't decide if it is a side effect of my decongestant or a symptom. Time stretches and shrinks. I feel dead tired and I almost fell asleep, but it felt really strange. You know sometimes when you're falling asleep you feel like you're falling and give a little hypnogogic jerk when you hit the bottom? Well, not like that at all, but the same semiconsciousness. It was like dreaming without any of the images, only the feeling of gradually getting higher or maybe falling out of bed, but not actually falling. When I think about my thesis I think of how neglected it is and resolve to write many pages tomorrow when I'm feeling better. Everything seems unsurmountable, but irrelevant. Stupid things like "Andrew Void-Webber" seem hilarious. You know, viruses.

Book projects in the last year

I wanted to document some of my bookbinding projects from last year, and I only just now got around to uploading photos. I can't remember this binding type's name, but the entire cover is made from one expensive piece of paper. The endband is hand-sewn. I gave it to my older brother for Christmas last year:

 This was a regular hardback I made with my mom's tastes in mind. It has yellow inside paper things and only got a little glue on it.

Below: This wasn't a bookbinding project, but it was a little book I made for a friend I was missing. I entitled  it "Activites for Adults and Children Alike." I'd like to see a real book like this, with cutesy drawings and stuff. I took a signature from some paper I had cut and just sewed in together with some yarn.

I also made a Minecraft cookbook, which I put over on my gaming blog. I know that I'm no expert at bookbinding, but it was fun to make some books.

Children in Japan: Have They Ever Had Fun?

The art of child raising in Japan generally has high expectations of children, but with a high amount of indulgence (and that’s not just anecdotal: see this study and this discussion).

Make Wise Mothers

The focus on children and their mothers began in the late Meiji period (1900s), when men’s jobs kept them away from home and women had the responsibility to become the family’s “supreme ruler.” Many of these women learned how to be “wise mothers” from their education; the last two years of girls’ high school was devoted to becoming a good mother. That makes sense--it takes time to learn how to make tempura and learn to teach children morality (girls’ morality classes were twice as long as boys’). While the samurai lifestyle expected children to be little adults, the turn of the century saw a heightened sensitivity to children’s needs. It’s this emphasis on mother-child relationships that, in my opinion, led to its idealization and spillover into non-maternal relationships (referred to as amae, but that’s a discussion for another day).

Expectation of the Superior Student


So as not to cramp the child’s energetic nature and individuality, mothers started giving their children more practical clothing and their own self-decorated rooms. This included in one instance, hanging the bookshelves crooked at the child’s request. The child was to have the most spacious, sunniest room (as referenced in Real World: "We'll make Ryo's room the sunniest one on the second floor"). Along with these indulgences, mothers expected their children to be “superior students.” The pressure on boys and girls to be at the top of their class so as to get a good job later on remains to this day. And it wasn’t just for men; the higher and more prestigious a woman’s education, the higher her desirability as a wife.

Mothers and Children In Japan Today


Many mothers are also working, though they do not receive the same seniority pay raises as their male counterparts, and about 40% of Japanese people think that women shouldn’t work while they have children at home (my source is from 1999). There’s still this incredible pressure on children to do well in school, but Japanese people are recognizing that sometimes kids need a break from studying. Indeed, one magazine found that children who had time to relax in the summer got better grades (so... they want children to relax so they can do better in school, basically).

I think it’s great for a mother to stay home with her children if she is able to and desires to do so. I don’t think I would raise a child in the indulgent style, but it appears to work alright. What do you think of traditional Japanese child rearing practices?

Most of the information in this article came from Children as Treasures.

Another Koko vid

Here's Koko tearing apart a thistle. She's 12 weeks old now, and she's getting even more energy and chewing on everything. Thanks to Koko, we've been going for more walks, and I've been trying to get up earlier (although for a while I was waking up to let her out and then crashing for another three hours).

I'm trying out new ways to study Japanese. I've started yet another blog, mostly for myself, where I take clips of anime and write out what they're saying in Japanese. It's a little harder than I thought it would be! So, I'm looking for anime with good examples of daily speech and especially polite speech. So far I think I have plenty of material to work with. I'm also thinking of getting a conversation partner through livemocha or something. Maybe I'll start out with a blog on lang8; chatting to friendly strangers is scary! But I guess the worst thing that could happen would be that I have to block someone (or get taught the wrong things).

August rain and lunches

Koko snoozing

Koko at 10 weeks looks out the window

I think it has rained every day for the past two weeks. It even hailed a ton one day:

It's the first August in Utah I've had where it is possible to be outside at 3pm and be comfortable in pants. I love the cooler weather, and I'm sure there will be a hot day somewhere down the road that really feels like summer. I got super-soaked by a four-year-old and Koko did nothing to protect me. She fled, not even barking a threat. Maybe when she's older she'll be less bitey of me and less scared of everything (last week the vacuum was nothing, this week it's a monster about to eat me). 

We got a breadmaker, and even though I've messed up the last two recipes, the products have been delightfully edible. Oh, and I picked up some old bento boxes from Balgram, which renewed my vigor in making them (also, I promised I would use them, so this post is in part proof). I've been looking to Bento Love for inspiration; I love all the photos. Here are all the lunches I've made in the past week (also, sorry about how Blogger and photos never get along):

Zuccini, cabbage, mushrooms, and ground beef. I forgot to salt the beef. 

Steamed cabbage with blanched bean sprouts and bonito flakes on the right. The left is shrimp taco leftovers: Red onion, corn, and shrimp combine with mango and cilantro (thanks to my Aunt Melissa for the idea)

Barley salad from Shana's recipe sharing circle; that stuff is rice pudding. Two tiers is especially nice for this kind of setup.

Spaghetti with green beans, chicken, mushrooms, and spinach

Spinach, sweet omelet, and ginger garlic chicken over rice (pickled ginger garnish)


Having leftovers like the chicken and spaghetti made making these lunches a lot easier. It also helped that I was getting up earlier to take Koko out (although I've simply gone back to bed some mornings). It's a way I show my love for my husband, and also it helps me experiment with new food stuff in a low-risk situation. I'm still content with a bagel and an apple for lunch, but I think making myself a portion beforehand is a good way to make sure I actually eat something other than pieces of bread (the laziness of the afternoon!).  Anyway, that's what the last two weeks have been like. 

Ethnic Food in Japan

Now, another Japanese culture post! Tufugu has even more Japanese cultural bizarreness.

You’ve heard of the uncanny valley, right? When a robot is really lifelike, but just different enough to be creepy and unsettling--that’s uncanny. That’s how it feels to eat some Japanese ethnic food. It’s just... not quite right. What’s so weird about it?

Italian-Japanese Food


Pasta is kind of like noodles, so it makes sense to put shrimp and crabs in it, right? Lasagna is pretty much the same, except with the seasoning toned down to perfect blandness. And the pizza... well, as you can see, toppings at this restaurant were arranged in a sakura-blossom pattern, and the pizzas were tiny and made with minimal cheese. Patrons ate everything with chopsticks. Makes perfect sense for Japanese people, just kind of unsettling for me.

French-Japanese Food

Most bakeries in Japan have French/European influence, but with modifications for Japanese tastes. The most popular bread is snow-white and fluffy, but sourdough and cinnamon-raisin bread are available. About 90% of the bread is sweet, but there are sausage rolls (yes, including fish sausage rolls). I’m actually a big fan of anpan and melon bread. Probably the weirdest thing in Japanese bakeries is how perfectly iced the cakes are. Crepes, available from street-side vendors, are offered with the usual fillings (strawberry, chocolate, and custard) with the occasional exotic place offering savory fillings. Probably the weirdest thing about crepes is that they’ve been made into food you can eat on the go: wrapped up with a paper cone like an ice cream.

American-Japanese Food

If you ask for a hanbaagu (ハンバーグ) in a restaurant, you’ll get something that looks like the above. It’s kind of like meatloaf, and due to the insane price of beef in Japan, it’s a good way to stretch out hamburger meat. There are McDonald's in Japan, which are very popular with both adults and children; if you want an actual hamburger it’s hanbaagaa (ハンバーガー). This ad suggests that children are indeed, wild about McDonald's:





And now, for the most unexpected interpretation of an eggroll:

Yes, that’s a roll with a mashed-up boiled egg on top. Yum!

There are tons more hilarious versions of ethnic foods in Japan (soy burgers, sardine pizza, oh and no one knows what a taco is). What’s the weirdest/most uncanny ethnic food you’ve come across?